was the took over from Thames in
1993 the times were retained, but since Carlton hired its broadcast facilities from LWT the on-screen handover no longer involved switching between different studios.
The channel's output was limited, producing an average of 50 hours programming a week. However LWT had a disproportionate effect on post-war
British Television , as a number of high-flying media personalities including
John Birt ,
Michael Grade and
Greg Dyke were all "LWT Boys".
David Frost was an original director of LWT, and he presented a late-night chat show in the station's early years. Another chat show host who made his debut on LWT was
Russell Harty .
Other notable early shows included ''
We Have Ways Of Making You Laugh '', a sketch show starring
Frank Muir (it was the first program scheduled to be aired on LWT, but industrial action that occurred during the preceding week blacked it out early into the first show); the children's fantasy ''
Catweazle ''; and several sitcoms, including ''
On The Buses '', ''
Please Sir! '', ''
Me And My Girl '' and ''
Mind Your Language ''. The channel also created the comedy clips format with ''It'll Be Alright on the Night'' and the much derided ''
Game For A Laugh '' that spawned ''
You've Been Framed ''.
Because it was a weekend station LWT's output tended to concentrate on more lightweight material than Thames, but it did produce a number of successful drama shows. ''
Within These Walls '', a
Prison drama starring veteran actress
Googie Withers , seems to have inspired the later Australian
Soap Opera ''
Prisoner ''. ''
Lillie '' was based on the real-life story of
Lillie Langtry (
Francesca Annis reprised the role from
ATV 's ''
Edward The Seventh ''). But by far the station's most successful drama was ''
Upstairs, Downstairs '', a successful attempt to produce a
Costume Drama comparable in scale to the
BBC 's ''
The Forsyte Saga ''. (The BBC repaid the compliment with ''
The Duchess Of Duke Street '').
The company was acquired by
Granada Group plc (now
ITV Plc ) in 1994. Major programmes on LWT included most of the ITV Saturday night lineup including ''
Play Your Cards Right '', ''
Blind Date '', ''
You've Been Framed '', long-running and successful drama series ''
London's Burning '' and their arts strand ''
The South Bank Show ''. LWT also owned 50% of
London News Network Limited, producers until
February 2004 of the news programmes ''London Today'' and ''London Tonight''. Regional news for London is now produced by
ITN .
The drive to created a unified ITV meant that, on
27 October 2002 , LWT's famous 70s blue-white-red river
Ident heralded a new LWT programme for the very last time, an edition of ''
The South Bank Show ''. The ident had been freshly animated in 16:9 by Dave Jeffery and Rory Clark. The programme was followed by a celebratory montage of LWT presentation across the years assembled by senior ITV presentation producer Gareth Randall, with announcers Glenn Thomsett and Trish Bertram appearing "in-vision" to toast the departing station. That morning LWT had broadcast a 1970s-style startup sequence between ITV Nightscreen and the ITN early morning news bulletin. The sequence even included a mid-70s station clock and a programme menu, all faithful recreations in Macromedia Flash.
The following Friday, LWT became known as ITV1 (London Weekends), with only the
ITV1 logo appearing before programmes. This meant that there was no distinction between LWT and its London weekday neighbour
Carlton Television (ITV1 London). The LWT logo continued to appear at the end of its programmes however until
31 October 2004 . From
1 November 2004 , LWT's productions carried a
Granada London logo instead.
